


Trannies In the Mist

by ladyarcherfan3



Category: Dark Angel
Genre: Alternate Universe - Movie Fusion, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-30
Updated: 2013-12-29
Packaged: 2018-01-06 16:02:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1108803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyarcherfan3/pseuds/ladyarcherfan3
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The morning after a violent thunderstorm, stories about meteor crash and an extra dose of transgenic hate conspire to ruin Alec’s day. And then the mist rolls in. It is far from ordinary and hides a true terror.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I have to send a big old shout out to [](http://staysthecourse.livejournal.com/profile)[**staysthecourse**](http://staysthecourse.livejournal.com/), as it was her art that inspired this fic, and who dealt with my insecurities as an author writing her first reverse bang and was a fantastic sounding board.  Also a massive thanks to [](http://dollarformyname.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://dollarformyname.livejournal.com/)**dollarformyname** who did a fantastic beta job.  Seriously, she saved this fic with great constructive criticism, catching little errors, and general encouragement.  All on a busy schedule and in a short time frame.  I am still in awe.
> 
>  
> 
> Art by staysthecourse: [here](http://staysthecourse.livejournal.com/6934.html)

**Part 1**

It was around midnight, and Seattle was hunched under an impressive thunderstorm. Rain pelted down in sheets, the thunder an almost constant rumble that occasionally launched into a lightening-streaked chorus of cannon fire. Despite how the night life normally thrived in the city, everyone had opted to stay out of the storm, so Alec didn’t feel like he was missing on of much by staying in his apartment. He had been soaked once that night and wasn’t eager to repeat it.

The storm’s opening salvo had caught him coming back from Terminal City, and had almost washed him off his motorcycle. While he was spending more and more time in TC, Alec still had his apartment in Seattle proper, in order to maintain his cover. It also gave him a place away from the insanity of the crowds. Much like a housecat, he didn’t like company forced on him, and when he wanted company, he’d go find it. Besides, he hadn’t managed to shift his mini bar over to TC yet.

He sprawled on the sofa in dry, comfortable clothes and worked his way through a bottle of scotch - cheap stuff, just to take off the chill and give him something to do. The TV was off, as the storm ruined pretty much all the reception. Something in the air made his skin itch; not physically, but there was an edge that made his hair stand on end. Whether or not it was from the electrical storm, he couldn’t say; all he knew was that it made him restless, and he had to work early the next morning. With a short sigh, he refilled his glass again and swirled the amber liquor once before taking a sip.

There was a sudden, terrifying boom. The lamp flashed and flickered and went out, glass chimed as bottles rocked on the counter, a few books tumbled from their haphazard perches, and entire building shook.

“The hell?” Alec demanded as he sprang to his feet and peered out through the window. His skin felt like it was crawling with the tension in the air. He thought he smelled ozone.

But that had been no thunder clap, he quickly decided. That had been an explosion. And it was one that had been either very close or very big to have knocked things off shelves. He squinted to see through the rain streaked glass, but he saw nothing strange through the storm and the dark. A few police vehicles with lights flashing zipped down the street, but then disappeared without having turned on their sirens.

“Great,” he muttered as he turned away from the window. “Maybe it was an earthquake. Just what this city needs.” He stooped and picked up the books that had fallen from the shelf, pages fanned open and bent.

His breath caught for a moment as a familiar symbol trotted boldly across one page. Manticore. But the moment passed quickly as he realized it was a book on Greek mythology; Brain had a rather eccentric library, and Alec hadn’t bothered to get rid of it. He idly flipped through the pages, watching illustrations of monsters flutter by, their descriptive captions a blur of black text. Pegasus, minotaur, faun, centaur, chimera, manticore…

Lightning flashed and there was a sharp crack of thunder, disrupting his thoughts.

Alec frowned down at the book and the monster and then out the window again. There was nothing out there, and Max hadn’t called, frantic about some catastrophe that she would need help fixing. Maybe it had just been a really intense thunderclap. Consoling himself with that thought, he closed the book, tossed it back on the shelf and went back to his scotch.

The storm had blown itself out by dawn, but Alec was still on the couch as the sky turned grey. The bottle sat empty on the floor, and he was curled up in one corner, breath soft and even, eyes half lidded. But his gaze kept flickering from the window to the book shelf without conscious effort.

 

*

  
Jam Pony was buzzing with a higher than usual level energy Over the throbbing hum of excited and nervous chatter, Normal’s voice rose in something close to a screech; he’d obviously shouted himself nearly hoarse already. Alec winced as he strolled down the ramp towards his locker. The static charge across his skin had not let up when the storm broke, and the added energy of the bike messengers did nothing to soothe it.

He had just opened his locker when Sketchy skidded around the corner.

“Did you see that meteor crash last night?” he demanded before Alec could even attempt a word of greeting. His eyes were wide and bright with excitement and he was grinning like an idiot.

Alec flicked an eyebrow up and said slowly, “No, Sketch, I didn’t see the meteor crash last night, because it was dark and rainy.”

Sketchy waved that off. “Whatever, you can’t tell me you didn’t notice the big boom.”

“So that’s what it was from,” Alec said, mostly to himself.

“Yeah, it hit a little ways out of the city. And the reports that are coming in are all saying that there were the remains of some sort of high class underground facility in the crater. This is awesome!”

“Don’t you have enough conspiracy theory in your life already with your photo journalism stuff?”

Sketchy gave him a sidelong look, the general excitement of the meteor and the possibilities easing away as if he was looking at a much bigger, much more real, problem. Then he just grinned again and shook his head. “It’s not theory if it’s real! I just wish I could have gotten out there, or could still get out there. Can you imagine what I would get for a story like that?”

“More than you’d make here for the day. Why don’t you just ask Normal for the day, and pedal yourself out there,” Alec joked. “How many miles outside of town was it?”

Sketchy scrunched his face up in consideration and then asked, “Can I borrow your motorcycle?”

Normal’s voice carried over the hubbub. “Alec! Hot run to Sector Six!”

“So can I borrow your bike?” Sketchy called as Alec turned and headed for the front desk.

Alec just laughed, sharp and mocking, without bothering to turn around.

“Do you think Max would let me borrow hers?”

Alec just laughed harder and walked out the door.

 

  
*

  
He was on his way back when he noticed it. A breath of wind, cold and clammy, swept over him, raising the hairs on the back of his neck. He blinked against the intensity of it, eyes watering, and couldn’t suppress a shiver.

Squinting upward, he noticed that Seattle’s dreary sky was suddenly dimmer than usual. A high, wide bank of white mist was rolling over the city. Even as he watched, the Space Needle was wrapped up in pale wispy tendrils, the hungry white wall close behind. Another shiver ran down his spine.

“Alec!”

He turned to see Max pedaling furiously down the block towards him. He registered several things at once: her face was set and creased with more frustration and worry than usual, and the weather was cool, but not frigid, yet she was dressed in long sleeves, a turtle neck, long pants, and full gloves.

“Well, Max, what’s happening this time?” he asked as she slid to a stop next to him. “Mole start a fight? Joshua eat some paint? You need me to pretend to be your boyfriend… oh wait, we’ve done that one,” he finished with a snap.

“Shut up,” she growled. “Look at this.” She tugged down the tall collar on her shirt, and then ripped the glove off her other hand with her teeth. Black marks danced across her skin, creeping up close to her chin, across her fingers and down her wrists.

“Wow, nice collection. What’s it got to do with me?”

“They all showed up last night, and I showed them to Logan.”

“So?”

“He thinks they’re a warning.”

“About what?”

“He wasn’t sure.

Alec frowned, frustrated. “Great. So we should be worried, but no one knows about what. Not that we don’t have enough to worry about.” He bent suddenly to tie his shoe; mostly to piss off Max about his apparent apathy.

Before Max could respond, the distinctive whirling sound of a hover drone filled the air.

“Crap,” she muttered and ducked her head a little to let her hair hide her face, pulling up the collar of her shirt almost to her chin. Alec decided to stay where he was, fiddling with his shoe laces.

The hover drone didn’t leave. Instead, sirens began to blare, with automated orders to freeze. Seconds later, sirens from sector police vehicles twisted into the air, less than a block away.

Max gasped. “Alec, your barcode!”

He ignored her. “Shit, shit, shit,” he hissed under his breath as he twisted off his bike and reached for a bit of concrete sitting on the ground.

“Oh my God, Alec, how many times have I told you to cover that thing up?”

“Wouldn’t have made a difference,” he snapped back. Eyes focused on the hover drone, he hefted the rock and let it fly. It whistled through the air. With a sharp crack of breaking glass, the hover drone wobbled in its flight but did not stop, and the sirens wailed on. Before he could manage another shot, police cars spun around three different corners, tires screeching against the pavement.

 

“Damn it!” Alec shouted in frustration. He searched frantically for a hiding place and exit. Across the street there was an abandoned cannery. The building was large and would likely have old equipment and enough places to allow them to play some escape and evade. “There!” he shouted to Max and pointed. “In there!”

“They’ll just surround us!” she shouted back as they abandoned their bikes and blurred across the street.

“Not if we move fast enough and get through the building first!” he argued.

Wood and metal thumped and groaned as he jerked open a door and pushed Max inside. They raced through the building, dodging through rusting industrial equipment and all but ripping doors from their hinges in their haste. But it was too late. Alec snapped open the back door in time to see two police cruisers skid to a stop and several armed men spring out.

“Back!” he snarled at Max as a gunshot rang out. He flinched back but felt the bullet open a stripe on his left shoulder. Pain and blood blossomed down his arm.

They ran back to the center of the warehouse, taking cover.

Someone boomed through a bullhorn, “You are surrounded! Come out with your hands up, and you will not be harmed-”

“Yeah, right,” Alec snorted. He ripped a strip off the hem of his T-shirt and wrapped it around his arm to soak up the blood. It was just a graze, more annoying than dangerous.

“Resist,” the voice continued, “And we will use force.”

Silence fell.

“Great,” Max sighed, letting her head thump back against the dry wall. “Brilliant plan, genius.”

“I’ll think of another one,” he muttered.

“You have thirty minutes to exit peacefully, before we enter forcefully,” the bullhorn voice called.

Neither Alec nor Max responded.

“What did you mean, just now,” she said suddenly, “about covering up the barcode not mattering? That’s kinda a transgenic thing.”

He snorted. “So’s a basal body temperature of 101.8 degrees. That’s how they got Biggs. That drone had one of those body heat detectors on it; a bunch of them have it now. Honestly, haven’t you been paying attention to anything that’s been happening lately?”

“I-” she started but he held up a hand to stop her.

“I know, bigger things, you and Logan, and your strange body art. Just, don’t. We need to get out of this mess.”

Max’s phone rang. She flipped it open and said with evident relief, “Logan!”

Alec rolled his eyes. “Speak of the devil,” he muttered.

She shot him a sharp glance but didn’t speak. “Oh,” she said after a few moments, crestfallen. “Just be careful.” A faint smile flicked across her face before she shut the phone.

“Well?”

“Logan’s stuck outside the city. He went out to investigate the rumors about the secret facility wrecked in the meteor crash last night,” she said in a small voice. “Now he can’t get back in very fast because of the mist and the tightened security on the check points, thanks to us.”

“Yeah, totally our fault.” Alec snorted. “Do you have any idea of how to get out of here since the knight in shining armor can’t get us?”

She glowered at the nick name for Logan. “I’ve got nothing, unless we can sneak out through the air vents and onto the roof.”

“And then get spotted by hover drones again?”

Max shrugged. “I don’t know - that mist was getting pretty thick. We might have cover.” She pursed her lips. “That mist didn’t seem strange to you, did it? I mean, it moved in really fast, and didn’t really look like ordinary mist…”

“It’s Seattle, Max,” Alec muttered. “It gets foggy sometimes.” But his own gut instinct agreed with Max. He just couldn’t afford to worry about it at the moment. They had real problems with guns just outside and a ticking clock to beat. The mist could wait.

 

  
*

  
Across the city, White looked up with a scowl as the door to his office flew open. Otto barely managed to skid to a halt and look somewhat professional before he blurted out his news.

“Sir, the police have two transgenics contained in a warehouse in Sector Six. Video footage from hover drones has given us visual confirmation. It’s 452 and 494, sir.”

White sprang to his feet, eyes blazing. “Get my car, now. I want to be at that warehouse in ten minutes.”

“But sir-”

“Now, Otto!”

As the other man left the room as fast as he had entered it, White glanced back at the computer he had been bent over. There had been some ruckus with the senior council early that morning, due to a meteor crash outside the city. More than a few members were inclined to believe this was a sign of the beginning of the end of this age, an age that would bring about their rise to power.

White wasn’t sure himself, but at the moment, his part in the events was clearly shown to him. The transgenic threat, Sandeman’s pet, was trapped. This could be the chance to destroy her at last. Fate was obviously favoring him today.

Within minutes, he was speeding down the street, despite the decreased visibility created by the thick white mist.

 

  
*

  
“You have fifteen minutes!” an officer was bellowing into a bullhorn as White pulled up in front of the old warehouse.

Something of a crowd had gathered along the perimeter the sector police had set up. Members of the Seattle Police Department and even a few National Guard troops had joined the sector police. Reporters shuffled around and up to courious onlookers, eager to get footage and statements. Obviously there were a number of civilians hanging about. The news crews must have worked at the speed of light to get the footage and reports out on the air waves already. White, followed by Otto, pushed his way through the crowd and barriers, flashing their Federal IDs at anyone who questioned them

“Who’s in charge here?” White demanded to the sector police at large.

“That would be me,” a deep voice replied, just over his left shoulder. “Lieutenant Ramone Clemente, Seattle PD.”

White turned to face the man and flashed his ID. “Special Agent in Charge White, FBI.”

“What does the Bureau want here?” Clemente demanded shortly.

“We have a vested interest in the safety and security of all American citizens,” White sniped back.

“This is my jurisdiction, and I don’t need the Bureau here cluttering things up.”

White just snorted. “It doesn’t look like you need much help there.” He gestured to the milling crowd and the motley crew of soldiers. “And you need all this for two suspected transgenics? Who, according to the hover drone footage, appear to be unarmed.”

“The situation is being handled,” Clemente growled.

“We’ll see about that.” White turned and pulled out his cell phone.

But before he could hit a key to make the call, the mist that had been dimming the air and dulling the sky descended like a wall. And then the screams started.


	2. Chapter 2

**Part 2**

  
Alec made a circuit around the interior of the building, and then made another, looking for an exit. There were numerous ways out, but no way to get past the police, National Guard, and the civilians without it being messy one way or another. Perched on a cat walk between the first and second floors, he peered out of one of the blurry windows. Though the fog and ever growing crowd, he saw a grey car pull up, and a familiar figure step out and stop to talk to the detective who was running the show.  
  
“Shit, White’s here!” The police had wised up to their dealings with transgenics, but they still weren’t all the way in the know about the various abilities. White, on the other hand, knew them and their limits fairly well. And he was out for blood, both Alec’s and Max’s.  
  
The situation had gone from bad to worse.  
  
Before she could reply, Max’s phone rang. She jumped in surprise, but answered it. “Go for Max.”  
  
“Hey, Little Fella,” Joshua’s voice replied. “It’s all gone sideways for you, huh? Situation’s FUBAR?”  
  
“You can say that again,” Max replied. “You all watching the news?”  
  
“Luke always watches the news,” he replied. “We saw you and Alec were in trouble. Mole and Joshua to the rescue!” He sounded endearingly proud and confidant. “We have the van just past the people. If you can get out, we will get all of us to TC.”  
  
“That’s brilliant, Joshua!” she cried. “Alec! We’ve got an escape vehicle!”  
  
“Well, that’s great - all we need now is an escape.” He leapt lightly down from the cat walk. “It’s gonna be even harder with White out there. And it looked like he was calling in reinforcements.”  
  
“We don’t need that big of a window. Just a few seconds. Maybe we can make a distraction.”  
  
Alec looked like he was about to disagree, but instead he froze. What little light that had filtered through the windows vanished, as if someone had dropped a heavy white curtain over the place. The noise of the crowd, which had been swelling the last few minutes, fell abruptly silent.  
  
“You know,” he said in a low voice. “There might be something weird about that fog.”  
  
They both went still, barely breathing. The air was heavy and cold. There was no noise.  
  
Then, one shrill scream of pain and absolute terror ripped through the air. It was quickly followed by a second, a third, and then the full cacophony of a panicked crowd. And plowing right over it all was an explosive roar.  
  
Max rushed for the door and pulled it open to look out.  
  
“What are you doing?” Alec demanded. He sprinted over towards her, reaching for the door.  
  
“Get inside!” a voice bellowed from outside.  
  
The crowd burst out of the mist, racing for the building. Their faces were twisted into wild masks of pure terror. The mist twisted and writhed like a live thing behind them. Even as Alec watched, a man at the back of the crowd stumbled and fell. The mist swirled around him, and he was suddenly jerked backwards with a scream. Alec thought he saw blood spray across the ground. He knew he smelled it, metallic and hot in the rush of rank, fear scented cold air.  
  
Then the mass of the crowd hit the partially open door. Even if they had wanted to, Alec and Max’s transgenic strength couldn’t have shut the door against them.  
  
Words began to filter through noise of screams, thudding feet and panted breaths.  
  
“Oh God! Oh God!”  
  
“Something’s out there!”  
  
“There’s something in the mist!”  
  
“Jordan just got snatched up!”  
  
“Fuck, there’s blood on me! What’s out there?”  
  
Out of the mess, a familiar voice called out. “Boo!”  
  
Original Cindy and Sketchy wiggled out of the press of bodies at the door.  
  
“What are you doing here?” Max demanded.  
  
“We saw the news, so I pedaled my fine ass down here, and hauled his scrawny self with,” Cindy replied as she slipped behind Max to keep out of the way. “We couldn’t leave friends alone.”  
  
“And now you’re in this mess, whatever it is, with us,” Alec muttered, and then spotted another familiar face. “CeCe?”  
  
The relatively recent addition to TC and Jam Pony slipped out of the crowd and moved to flank Alec. Her entire posture was battle ready and terrified. “Was in the area on a run when the mist closed in,” she said quickly. “There’s something wrong.”  
  
“You’re telling me. How many more people were out there?”  
  
“Just these last few that I could see.”  
  
“Okay, then. Max!” Alec met Max’s eyes through the crowd; he nodded and they hauled the door shut behind the last person, the tall detective who had been talking to White. But there was a deep shout from out of the mist just before it closed completely.  
  
“Little Fella!”  
  
Joshua and Mole galloped out of the white. The dog man looked terrified, while Mole just looked utterly pissed off, the ever present cigar clamped and being shredded between his teeth. They hit the door running, and Mole spun to cover Joshua’s back until they were inside.  
  
“Joshua, are you all right?” Max asked.  
  
At the same time, Alec demanded, “Did you see what was out there?”  
  
Joshua just shook his head in confusion and fear. “I don’t know. Something bad. Manticore bad. Worse.”  
  
“Something that made my blood run like ice,” Mole growled. “And I didn’t even see anything.”  
  
Max frowned. “Wait, something from Manticore?”  
  
“No, worse,” Joshua argued.  
  
“Which is terrifying,” Alec said. “Manticore was all about brain rewiring and torture; the monsters were just people like Mole.”  
  
“Hey!”  
  
“It’s true, you and the early X-series were the ‘Nomalies we were all scared of,” Alec snapped back.  
  
“Ain’t my fault, so don’t blame me!”  
  
“Guys, can we keep this together?” Max demanded.  
  
“Okay, yeah. We need to know what’s out in the mist,” Alec agreed.  
  
In the moment when they all took a breath, Alec realized that the frenzied shouting of the rest of the crowd in the building was directed at something. And that something was the transgenics.  
  
“Oh, shit,” he hissed as the noise erupted once again.  
  
“It’s them!” one man cried. “They’re behind this!”  
  
A woman sobbed, “Oh God, they’ll kill us all!”  
  
“Kill them!” White’s voice rang out, and the crowd made a small, sudden surge forward.  
  
Hands out in a placating gesture, Alec called out, “Hey, hey, everyone stay calm!” He was aware of the other transgenics moving into defense positions, but he shook his head once before Mole could chamber a round in the shotgun and lift it.  
  
A gun shot rang out, loud and surprising the crowd to flinch and fall to inaction.  
  
“Quiet! That’s enough!” the detective bellowed. Silence fell. “Everyone is going to stay calm,” he continued, slowly and deliberately. “I’m Lieutenant Clemente, SPD. We have a situation here that is clearly making everyone jumpy. The last thing we need to do is to panic. I need information, and I need it clear and concise, so no one speaks unless I indicate it for now. Can we all deal with that?”  
  
There was a wave of nods through the crowd, civilians and soldiers alike relaxing minutely under the gaze of a leader.  
  
“Nice one,” Alec said. “I didn’t know the shot fired into the air thing actually worked outside of the movies.”  
  
Clemente holstered his weapon and replied in an even tone, “Didn’t I just say something about not speaking unless spoken to?”  
  
“Don’t like authority figures,” Alec replied, twitching his shoulder out of the way of the punch Max aimed at him. “Besides, I figured that rule applied to the non-genetically enhanced members of society.”  
  
“Right now, I don’t give a damn if he looks like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ cousin,” Clemente nodded at Mole, “or if you have a barcode on your neck. All I do give a damn about is getting everyone out of here, alive and unharmed. The problem is I don’t even know what’s out there.”  
  
“Mist and monsters,” Joshua said, voice low and troubled.  
  
White pushed towards the front of the crowd. “Oh, I don’t know, I see an awful lot of monsters in here.”  
  
There was a quiet mutter of agreement from the Ordinaries.  
  
Clemente leveled a sharp glare at White that was rivaled in intensity only by the murderous looks the transgenics threw at him. “Special Agent in Charge White, I don’t know anything about you, other than you think you’re important and are continuing to work up a bunch of civilians into a riot that will only end badly. Now shut up unless you have something constructive to say.”  
  
White returned the glare, but kept his mouth shut.  
  
Alec’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. “Impressive. And thanks.”  
  
“My city, my people,” Clemente replied. “I’m a little territorial. And I do know that you lot have the potential to be very dangerous, and I do not want to risk anyone breaking out into a fight in here-”  
  
One of the high windows broke open, the glass shattering with an explosive crackle. Shards fell into their exposed heads and people screamed. When a tendril of grey fog slipped in through the opening, the screams intensified. Glass shattered with an explosive crackle as one of the high windows broke open. People screamed as the shards fell on their exposed heads, and the screams continued as a tendril of grey fog slipped in through the opening. It was fog that was thick and substantial and sentient.  
  
“That’s not fog,” Alec said, more to himself. “Mole, Josh, with me! Max, CeCe, Clemente, get boards or something to start covering the windows! Now!”  
  
He snapped a piece of piping off the wall as a weapon as Mole chambered a shell and took a shot at the … whatever it was. Definitely not fog. Fog wasn’t supposed to wiggle, and it certainly wasn’t supposed to splatter the walls with grey ichor when it got shot.  
  
In seconds, they were up on the catwalk next to the window. There was nothing to be seen through the broken window other than the mist and the wounded thing still wiggling about.  
  
“Is that a goddamn tentacle?” Mole demanded as it swung past his face. He shot again, this time with buckshot, and sprayed the wall with lead and bits of tentacle. “Did Manticore play with octopuses or something and one got loose?”  
  
“Don’t know, don’t care right now!” Alec shouted as a second tentacle appeared through the window. “Chop them! Whatever they’re attached to, it ain’t nice!”  
  
He smashed one tentacle down, flesh squishing under the blow. With one end pinned down under his boot, Alec sawed at the thing with the ragged end of the pipe. There was a squelch, a burst of grey tinted blood, and the tentacle withdrew, leaving the tip flopping around under his foot.  
  
Mole managed to shoot off a chunk of the other tentacle before Joshua bellowed a warning. The next window over shattered, but instead of a tentacle, a snake appeared. Mole shot it while Alec blurred over to attack it with the pipe. The head snapped off and flopped around on the floor, its open mouth displaying a pair of large fangs. A roar sounded from outside, reverberating through the windows. What was left of the snake disappeared and silence fell again.  
  
“Alec! Here!” Max and a small group of volunteers appeared, carrying everything from plywood pieces to interior doors to sides of destroyed freezers.  
  
“All right people, let’s organize and cover the windows! Check around – there might be shutters or grates on some of them. As long as it’s solid, use it.”  
  
When some of the Ordinaries hesitated, Clemente added his voice to the command. “You heard the man!”  
  
Alec skewered the tentacle piece on the pipe and brought it over to Max, letting it dangle in her face. “You like?” he asked with a wicked grin. Now that the immediate danger seemed over, and everyone was fortifying the place, he felt that the mood should be lightened.  
  
“God, are you five or something?” Max groused as she dodged away from the slimy, dripping appendage.  
  
“Feline DNA, gotta show off my kill.”  
  
“To me? Doesn’t that make me your alpha, then?”  
  
“Damn it.”  
  
Clemente walked over, eyes were wide and his face ashy with shock. “What the hell was that thing?” he demanded in a low voice.  
  
“No idea,” Alec said. “If it is something out of Manticore, I’ve never heard of it, and Joshua doesn’t seem to have a clue either.”  
  
“So what could it be?” Max wondered.  
  
“I don’t know what’s out there, but guns hurt it,” Mole said, joining them.  
  
“All my men are armed,” Clemente pointed out.  
  
“Good for them,” Mole shot back. “I’d just like some of my people to have guns, too, because I don’t quite trust your people.”  
  
“I can hardly ask them to hand over their weapons to a group of people they had just been trying to capture ten minutes ago, even if this situation is the strangest one I’ve ever been in. That will cause a riot.”  
  
Alec held up his hand in a placating manner. “Steady.” When both Mole and Clemente had taken a deep breath, he continued. “So, what’s your idea Mole?”  
  
“I have more shotguns and ammo out in the van. I’ll go out and get them, and bring them back.”  
  
“You won’t be able to see through the mist,” Max pointed out. “Not in time to deal with whatever is out there on your own. And what if you get turned around, and get lost?”  
  
“Seriously, sister? Do you think I just popped out of a test tube yesterday?”  
  
“She’s got a point,” Alec said. “And she won’t use a gun.”  
  
Max gaped a bit at the sudden direction change, but it didn’t faze Mole. “Then give her that pipe, I don’t care. This gun’s gonna need more ammo eventually, and I’m going to get it.”  
  
“Fine,” Alec said after a moment. “Where’s the van?”  
  
“Right where I parked it, I hope,” Mole growled. “Just past the barricades on the east side of the building.”  
  
“How far?”  
  
“Three hundred yards, maybe.”  
  
Alec scratched the back of his head, thinking. “That’s a long way out there, with the mist… we could tie a string to you, so we could sorta pull you back after you got the guns.”  
  
“That’d work,” Mole agreed. “Just let me get the guns.”  
  
Clemente was still standing with them, and he shook his head in amazement. “You’ve got brass balls.”  
  
Mole just grinned around his cigar.  
  
“Is there rope or something in here?” Max wondered, glancing around.  
  
“I don’t know, grab some friends and look,” Alec said.  
  
She glowered at him. “Who died and made you boss?”  
  
“Your intelligence,” Alec shot back. “Not my fault you missed all the strategy and leadership classes at Manticore. Even if I prefer solo work.”  
  
“Seem to be enjoying bossing everyone around,” she sulked.  
  
He took a deep breath. “Okay. We have a situation, and we need to get out of it with as little bloodshed as possible. So can we stop arguing and start looking for solutions to the problem? Right now, use all your speechifying skills that has everyone at TC enthralled to keep the crowd calm. I’m going to make rope.” He looked up and waved. “Cindy, Sketch! Help me look around and see if you can get close to four hundred yards of rope or cable or something.”  
  
“Four hundred yards?” Sketchy demanded incredulously.  
  
“Never mind him, Pretty Boy, he just can’t count that high. We got this.” Cindy grabbed Sketchy by the arm and they started poking in the corners and through broken equipment. A few of the civilians who had been standing nearest to the little war council wandered over to them and offered to help.  
  
Alec watched them for a moment, and then turned back to Mole. “You really gonna do this?”  
  
“Kid, this ain’t my first siege,” he shot back. “We don’t have any sort of supplies to wait it out, so we need weapons to fight our way out. That’s the way it’s gotta be. Don’t think just because you’re an X-5 and got all the fancy assignments and the Ordinary looks that you’re smarter.”  
  
Hands up in surrender, Alec took a slight step back. “All right, big guy, take it easy. It’s your call.”  
  
Mole snorted and chomped on his cigar. “Damn right.”  
  
Sketchy and OC showed up at that point, hauling coils and loops of everything from steel cables to thick extension cords. “I think we’ve got enough,” Cindy declared.  
  
“Start splicing,” Alec said, grabbing several extension cords and tied them together with square knots.  
  
“Woulda thought this Manticore did enough splicing,” Sketchy said, a hesitant little smirk on his face.  
  
“Ha ha,” Alec said dryly.  
  
Max joined them and slapped his shoulder lightly. “Good thing you are going to be a journalist and not a standup comedian.”  
  
“His face is a joke,” Cindy offered, and there was a huff of laughter from the small group.  
  
In a few minutes, they had a makeshift lifeline made and tied to Mole’s belt. Alec stood near the door with the line coiled at his feet, adjusting the loops so it ran out smoothly. Mole checked his weapons again and hauled open the door; the mist seemed to press into the gap. Thin white tendrils trickled over the threshold and brushed against the hinges.  
  
Alec felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up and he had to repress the urge to snarl. They knew there was something out there, in the mist, but that didn’t make it any easier. He was a soldier, a predator, not the prey. It was all sorts of wrong to feel cornered and trapped.  
  
“I’ll give three tugs when I start back, so you guys can haul in the slack and steer me,” Mole said as he ratcheted his shotgun.  
  
“Be careful,” Max urged.  
  
Mole just snorted and stepped outside.  
  
The mist swallowed him before he made it three steps, but the muffled thumps of his boots on the pavement and the jerky pull on the line as it spooled out through his hands reassured Alec that the other transgenic had not just simply disappeared.  
  
Long moments passed in silence, as even the crowd of civilians was huddled together, eyes on the door, expectant and fearful. The mist outside the door continued to heave and swirl as breaths of cold air blew into the warehouse. Alec’s hackles rose every time the wind brushed over his skin, goosebumps forming across his skin even under his usual layers of clothing.  
  
Then the rope stopped.  
  
A collective breath was taken and held while nothing happened. And then the line jumped with three firm tugs.  
  
Max let out a relieved sigh as Alec hauled the line back in, trying to not pull too hard and unbalance Mole.  
  
“That wasn’t as bad as I thought it woul-” Max started, but a roar cut her off.  
  
Mole answered with a roar of his own, and both were drowned out by a shotgun blast. The rope jumped and tugged and then snapped taut. Alec’s hands closed on it just as something far stronger than Mole pulled at the other end.  
  
The improvised line ripped through his hands, and he snarled, “A little help!”  
  
Max was behind him before the sentence was finished, latching onto a loop of the coil before it could snap free. Joshua, CeCe, Sketchy and Cindy all sprang into action, forming a not quite human anchor. But it wasn’t enough. The line continued to rip through their hands, the knots catching on and tearing fingers. There was a sharp tug that pulled them forward; Alec’s boots skidded across the floor when Sketchy lost his balance and fell into Max who, in turn, bumped into Alec.  
  
“Damn it, hold on!” he ordered, planting his feet.  
  
But even as he hauled back, the pressure gave way. They all fell over at the sudden release. Alec untangled himself from Max, who was snarling at him in discomfort and fear, and scrambled towards the door, snatching up the rope again.  
  
“Mole!” he bellowed into the mist. His voice seemed to reverberate back to him, and only silence answered. He glanced back at the others, who were standing again. “Haul him back.”  
  
For a moment, Alec honestly hoped that it was just adrenaline that made it seem so easy to pull Mole back to the door. He knew, though, that even before his hands slipped on the rope, wet from blood that wasn’t from the torn skin of his finger, that it was bad.  
  
The line was slippery Alec pulled it one last time. What remained of Mole slid out of the mist and slipped across the concrete, leaving a wide, red trail. The entire upper half of his body had been torn away; only the rope tied to his belt had let them retrieve that much.  
  
Screams and cries filled the air when the nervous crowd saw the macabre remains. Alec felt a cold pit open somewhere in his gut, and heard Max and Joshua’s soft sounds of mourning. Whatever was out there was bad and big enough to rip Mole apart with very little effort. He slammed the door shut, wondering at how flimsy that barrier seemed suddenly.  
  
The noise from the crowd swelled, rising to something of a panic. Alec sucked in a deep breath and turned. “Clemente!” he called out. The detective appeared, visibly shaken. “Calm them down. We’ll take care of ours.”  
  
Clemente nodded once and hurried over to the huddled mass, his hands lifting in a calming motion and his deep clear voice rang out confidance.  
  
With one last glance to reassure himself that the panic wasn’t getting out of hand, Alec turned back to his friends. Cindy and Sketchy were clutching each other, shock and horror clear on their faces. They hadn’t known Mole, but that hardly mattered. Joshua, on the other hand, had nearly wilted into Max’s embrace; the two big transhumans had been far from close friends, but Joshua’s heart was too kind and big to not grieve. Alec had to get them all moving again, though, and figure out what the hell was out there, or at least how to get out.  
  
“CeCe, run a perimeter check again,” he ordered. “Make sure every door and window is secured. I don’t want to risk anything getting in. Sketch, OC, I need you two to go and help calm everyone down.”  
  
Sketchy looked mortified. “Calm everyone else down?” he demanded.  
  
Cindy slapped his arm and stood up straighter. “Sketchy, please,” she said quietly. He took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. “Good,” she nodded. “But Alec, I don’t think we’re gonna be favorites, not if they’re still worried about transgenics.”  
  
“Remind them that whatever is out there doesn’t care if they’re Ordinary or genetically enhanced. We gotta work together.”  
  
Before they could offer more arguments or seek more reassurance, Alec turned to Max and Joshua. “We need to move Mole’s… remains somewhere for now. We can give him a proper goodbye when we get out of this mess.”  
  
“One of the interior rooms?” Max suggested. “Where there were walk-in freezers?”  
  
He nodded in agreement. “Good, yeah. Josh-”  
  
“I got it.” He had found a tarp and reverently wrapped the half-corpse in it before slowly moving further into the warehouse.  
  
Alec dropped his head for a moment and rubbed the back of his neck. “Damn it, damn it,” he muttered. “This just went from bad to worse.”  
  
“At least we’re safe for the time being. Whatever’s out there doesn’t seem interested in getting inside anymore.” Even though she sounded confident, Max glanced up at the blocked up windows, brows pinched.  
  
“For the time being. And I’m afraid that if we end up sitting here too long, we’re gonna have a lot of problems from the inside too.” He sent a glance at the crowd, who were no longer as violently panicked, but were still huddled in groups and talking quietly. Several eyes kept wandering to the door, the slick of blood, to Alec and Max, and then back again.  
  
“Let’s go and present ourselves peacefully, and hang out with Clemente,” Alec suggested quietly. “I want a war council anyway.”  
  
The detective obviously had something similar in mind. “What the hell are we going to do here?” he demanded.  
  
“It’s a siege, so far. We just have to wait it out, and try to gather intel.”  
  
“We don’t know anything more than we did before your friend got killed,” Clemente snapped.  
  
Alec’s face went flat and emotionless. “We know that it can rip apart a transgenic as big as Mole without much of a struggle, and that we all need to stay calm.”  
  
“And how are we going to get intel on this? We can’t see more than three feet outside the door because of the mist, and obviously no one can risk going out there!”  
  
“I’ll think of something.”  
  
“That’s reassuring,” Clemente muttered, and Max’s expression echoed her agreement.  
  
Before he could reply, he felt the weight of a gaze settle on him, lifting the fine hairs on the back of his neck. He glanced around and saw White, still and silent in the midst of the nervous crowd. His face was rather pale and his gaze slipped from Alec to the door, staring out to where the mist and monsters were.  
  
Only enhanced hearing and some knowledge of lip reading allowed him understand what White whispered. “I thought they were a myth.”  
  
Alec’s face went hard. “I think I found a source of intel,” he said and took off towards White.  
  
There was a moment where Alec was unsure if he should play dumb and ignore the fact that he knew White and what he was, but that passed quickly. White went into a defensive pose that was only slightly disguised as arrogance and bit out, “494. That little headache I made for you obviously didn’t work. Don’t think that I can’t fix that. Of course, I could just throw you out to the mist, and you’d be relieved of more than just your head.”  
  
Every thought about keeping the crowd calm and not scaring anyone disappeared from Alec’s brain in a moment of cold calculated hate stemming from pure fear. He grabbed White by the throat and blurred forward until he slammed against the nearest wall. Fear and then smug satisfaction flashed across White’s face even as Alec set his arm across the other man’s throat and pressed. It took a few moments for sound to leak back into his brain and register.  
  
The crowd was loud again. Max was shouting in his ear and tugging on his arm. Alec kept White pinned for a few more heartbeats before taking a small step back.  
  
“What the hell are you doing?” Max demanded. “What happened to not starting a riot?”  
  
Alec didn’t bother to answer Max directly. “You know what’s out there, don’t you?” He glared at White who just stared back. “Don’t you?”  
  
White just lifted his lips in a sneer.  
  
Max added her voice and glare. “Tell us. We all can get out of here alive.”  
  
“What makes you think I want to let you get out of here alive?” White asked, turning his head to look at her. “Haven’t you got the idea that I want you and all the transgenic scum dead?”  
  
“And didn’t you see the people like you and me getting ripped apart earlier?” Clemente demanded. “Damn it, Agent, your own partner got snapped up!”  
  
“Otto was just a lackey, and far from being on the same level as me.” White’s sneer had turned into more of a smirk.  
  
“Listen, White,” Alec said evenly. “You can tell us and we can all walk out of here, or I can get it from you, and you maybe can crawl out of here. If I’m feeling generous.”  
  
“What are you going to do, throw a few punches, maybe break a finger or two?” White turned back to glare at Alec. “If you know me, you know I don’t feel pain.”  
  
Alec let his weight drive forward against his forearm again, pinching off White’s air supply. “And if you know me, you know that I am Manticore trained, and trust me, I am pretty damn familiar with interrogation techniques.”  
  
Max’s eyes flew wide. “Alec, if you start torturing him, you will set off a riot.”  
  
“We have to know what’s out there,” he replied, not looking away from White. “And he’s our best source.”  
  
“All they will see it a transgenic being a monster with a human.”  
  
“You and I know differently. He’s not really human.”  
  
“Doesn’t matter!”  
  
Clemente broke in then. “What do you mean, he’s not human? Is he a transgenic as well?”  
  
“I’m so far above that filth-” White started, but Alec slammed him against the wall again. He was slightly surprised the man wasn’t actually fighting back.  
  
“Look, Max and Clemente, you two have to go and keep everyone calm and reassure them that this is for the best. I’ll get the intel.”  
  
Max shook her head. “I don’t like this, Alec. This isn’t right, and it isn’t you.”  
  
“It isn’t? This is a way for me to get out alive, and seriously, we can’t argue that I don’t have a really strong self-preservation drive.” He smirked, but it was more of a grimace than a grin. “Besides, Logan has already labeled me as a happy-go-lucky psychopath. Today it’s just a bit less happy-go-lucky and more psychopath.”  
  
“Alec,” she tried again.  
  
“I know what I’m doing,” he said firmly. “Now get over to those Ordinaries and stop the riot before it happens.” He looked away from White then. “Joshua! Come here Big Fella.”  
  
Back from his somber task, Joshua shifted his route across the floor from aiming towards Original Cindy to Alec. His head hung low, hair hiding his face, both in grief for Mole and in sadness at the fearful reactions of the Ordinaries as he walked into the room once again.  
  
“I need to you help me get him into one of the old office rooms, the third door on the left, there,” Alec said. “And bring some of that rope we used earlier.”  
  
White didn’t make a quip about what the rope was going to be used for, as Alec had expected, but rather turned his reptilian gaze onto Joshua. “Ah, you were the freak in the tunnels we were after a few weeks ago,” he said pleasantly. “Too bad about your pretty girlfriend, or chew toy or whatever she was. So lovely, so fragile. Snap went the neck.”  
  
Joshua’s head snapped up and a bubbling growl filled the air just before he launched himself at White.  
  
Max grabbed his arm and hauled him back. “No, Joshua, no!”  
  
“He killed Annie!”  
  
“You kill him and you’re no better than he is,” Max argued.  
  
At the same time, Alec said, “He’ll get what he deserves, Joshua. But not like that.”  
  
Joshua took a deep breath and backed away. He looked at Alec for a long moment, and then at White again. “Rope,” he said finally, and strode back towards the door to the abandoned and bloodied coil.  
  
Alec relinquished his hold on White to Joshua once they had the Familiar’s hands bound behind his back. Then, with the stares of very frightened and confused people boring into his back, Alec led the way across the warehouse.  
  
Near the back door that he and Max had tried to escape from earlier, there was some abandoned equipment – shelving and the like – that seemed like it could be useful for the situation he now found himself in. With a satisfied nod, he turned to White, immobile in Joshua’s grip.  
  
“Strip,” he said without emotion.  
  
White blinked once and then glared back. “Should have known they made you freaks kinky.”  
  
Alec ignored the barb and produced a knife from inside his jacket. “Strip. Kick off your shoes.”  
  
White didn’t move until, after a nod from Alec, Joshua grabbed his bound wrists and started lifting upwards. He grimaced but didn’t make a sound of pain. “Fine.” He kicked off his shoes, flinging them to narrowly miss Alec.  
  
Expressionless and clinical, Alec undid White’s belt and fly and let the pants drop. Then he moved up and simply cut away his overcoat, suit jacket and shirt and tossed the demolished garments to one side. Before White could make any more comments, Alec turned him to a steel shelf that was tilted against a corner, twisted to make it steady on the base. Then with transgenic speed, he cut the rope binding White’s wrists and bound the man, spread eagle, on the shelving.  
  
“This is how you plan to break me?” White sneered. “Hardly original and not likely to work.”  
  
“Joshua,” Alec ignored White as ever. “Go back and get that snake head that got lopped off earlier. I’m pretty sure it’s still on the catwalk.”  
  
Brow wrinkled in confusion, Joshua hurried away.  
  
Alec turned back to White. “What to do when ordinary pain won’t make you talk? Don’t have Manitcore’s tools, but I did learn a lot from them, and improvisation was always one of my higher marks.”  
  
“Christ,” White muttered. “You going to talk me to death?”  
  
“Thought that was the bad guy’s job, and I’m not the bad guy here.”  
  
“Not from where I’m at,” White growled.  
  
“So, physical beatings won’t do,” Alec continued. He glanced down at his knife and tested the edge with his thumb. “There are always nerve clusters. Or the death by a thousand cuts.” The knife flicked out and drew short but not terribly shallow cuts down White’s arms, shoulders and chest. White just snarled in fury.  
  
Joshua reappeared then, the snake head pinched between two fingers and held at arm’s length. Alec took it from him, hooked it on a piece of wire, and used another loop of rope to let it hang above White. The mouth gaped open in death, and the fangs began to leak clear drops of venom. Blood oozed down from the hacked stump of neck.  
  
“From what Max said, even you crazy people are affected by that snake blood in your super-secret ceremony. I have no clue if that snake is like this snake, but I figure it’s not going to do you any good.” He watched a drop of poison fell from a fang and hit White on the chest, right on one of the cuts. White winced but did not react further.  
  
Alec finally allowed a smirk to flit across his features. “I’ll let you sit and stew for a bit,” he said, and left.  
  
Joshua shuffled after him. “What are we doing, Alec?”  
  
“Waiting,” was the reply. “He can sit there for a while.”  
  
“Should someone watch him, just in case he gets out of the ropes?”  
  
“Yeah, good idea, big guy.”  
  
“Joshua watch.”  
  
“All right. I’ll be back in a couple of hours to spell you.”  
  
Joshua nodded and settled on a box within sight of the improvised torture chamber.  
  
As soon as Alec rounded the corner and came into view, Max rushed over to him. “What did you do?” she demanded, voice low and tight.  
  
“Tied him to a shelf in his shorts and socks and let a venomous snake head drip poison and blood on his face and chest,” Alec said as if he did such things every day.  
  
Max blinked a little in surprise. “That’s all you did?”  
  
“What did you expect me to do? Start chopping off fingers and toes?”  
  
Her expression showed that the exact thought had crossed her mind.  
  
“Jesus, Max. You were at Manticore. Think about the torture there.”  
  
She frowned. “It sucked.”  
  
“But it was rarely physical. They knew they had made us tough. So they broke our barriers mentally. Some of it was physical, like leaving us in those little pods for days at a time, but most of it was mental. Psy-Ops, the threat of.”  
  
“So you’re making White break how…”  
  
“He’s stripped almost naked, so he’s going to feel exposed. He’s tied, so he’s helpless. And he’s got that poison dripping into his blood stream nice and slowly, making him wonder how fast he’s going to get sick from it, if he even does. He’s not going to break fast, but he’ll break.” He delivered the information clinically, and never broke eye contact with Max. “I tended to not remember a lot of what Psy-Ops did to me, but I remember enough.”  
  
She shifted uncomfortably; her own stints in Psy-Ops had been bad, but she knew Alec had survived worse. “Is he going to break before we all get killed from whatever is out there?”  
  
“We’ll just have to wait it out,” Alec shrugged. “We’re in a secure location, have repelled one attack already. As long as we pay attention and make sure any place that could be breached is watched and reinforced, we should be fine.”  
  
“We will be,” Max said. “But the Ordinaries?”  
  
“Are they freaking out yet? I thought you were going to calm them down?” His voice took on a slight edge.  
  
She glared at him. “Right, while you were torturing a guy. They settled, until someone realized that we had no food, or more importantly, water, and we have no idea when we’re getting out of here.”  
  
“Great.” Alec sighed and rubbed his face with his hand. “Well, let’s get everyone to stay relatively still and calm and hope the mist dissipates so we can at least see what’s going on out there, even if White never gives us anything.”  
  
Hours crawled by, marked only by the inexorable tick of watches, and by the shift of the nearly invisible shadows across the warehouse floor; the mist blocked out most of the sun’s light, and the reinforcements to the windows didn’t help. And despite their best efforts, Alec, Max and Clemente couldn’t convince everyone to get along. The transgenics, along with OC and Sketchy, sat on one side of the room, while the civilians, sector police and National Guard sat on the other.  
  
Alec settled on a only marginally broken office chair scrounged from a dusty corner and took turns watching the crowd and glancing over to where he could see Joshua’s shoes sticking out past the corner, where the big transgenic continued sat as a guard over White. Whereas Joshua sat still and calm, the Ordinaries could not.  
  
Boredom did not compete with fear, it fed it. Enough people were bored and trapped when at work in their offices and cubicles, but put them in an empty warehouse surrounded by monsters outside and a few inside, and no one was going to stay entirely calm. Alec was having a bit of a problem with it as well, and he was far more used to situations like this than most of the people present.  
  
Max wandered back over to him. “Anything from White yet?”  
  
“Have you seen me move?” he asked.  
  
“No,” she admitted. “I hoped that my subtle hint would encourage you to go check.”  
  
“Testy, are we?” he drawled and rocked back on the chair.  
  
She just scowled at him and leaned back against the wall. “It’s going to be dark in a few hours.”  
  
“Hmmm.”  
  
“We aren’t going to have light.”  
  
“My night sight is fine, how about yours?”  
  
“You know what I mean.” She looked at the crowd of Ordinaries.  
  
“We could cut and run. Head back to TC. Sort it out from there.” He didn’t make eye contact with her, but looked at the windows, as if he could see through the metal panels and past the mist to where answers and what passed for safety for transgenics.  
  
“We?” Max demanded.  
  
“Yeah, us. The genetically enhanced,” he said the words precisely, but his tone was almost mocking.  
  
Max frowned severely. “And leave all these people here against who knows what?”  
  
He shrugged. “They’d do that to us, without a second thought, if they could. Or they’ll finally mob up and try to kill us. And honestly, as fast and strong as we are, they have more people, and more guns. And you probably won’t fight back.”  
  
“Because we are faster and stronger,” she said. “We have to be better than they are. Or we will be just the monsters they see.”  
  
He sighed. “I’ll go check on White.”  
  
“Thank you, Alec,” she said softly.  
  
“If I had my choice, I’d leave,” he replied, but there was very little strength to it.  
  
“I’m not forcing you to be here.”  
  
He sighed. “Sorta are. Besides I’m more worried about Josh. Leaving him with you seems like a bad idea.”  
  
“As if you haven’t gotten him in trouble, too!” she shot back, but there was no heat.  
  
The arrogant Familiar was just where Alec had left him, though much of the bravado had worn away under the hours of inactivity and the pain from the venom. Most of the cuts Alec had inflicted across White’s arms and chest were scabbed over and hardly irritated. But those that the venom had dripped on were red, puffy and still leaking blood. Alec allowed himself a quick smirk when another drop of poison hit White and the man flinched. Then he spotted Alec and sneered.  
  
“Back so soon? Why don’t you get on with it, and I’ll show you what a real man can take.”  
  
“I like to take it slow; no need to rush the foreplay,” Alec replied and stepped closer; he didn’t touch White, but reached up to tap the dangling snake. The head swayed and another drop of venom leaked out to splatter on a scabbed cut. The clotted blood melted away in a heartbeat and the reopened wound started to swell. White snarled.  
  
Alec took in the sheen of sweat on the man’s face, the slight tremors of muscles held in an uncomfortable position for too long and the faint flush of fever creeping up his neck and into his face. The venom was having some effect. Not as much as Alec would have liked, or as fast, but it was working. He had a fleeting thought that maybe they’d be attacked again, and he’d manage to kill another snake and use it. As fast as it occurred, he pushed it away. Way too risky for everyone else.  
  
White shivered suddenly, short and sharp. “Well, what clever trick are you going to use on me to break me now?” he demanded, but there was a hint of strain under his words.  
  
Before Alec could answer, a cell phone rang. Puzzled, Alec tapped his pocket, but realized it wasn’t his. Who would be calling him at this point anyway? Normal? Not likely, after the news has splashed his face all over as a transgenic threat. A second later, he realized it was coming from White’s overcoat pocket, which was lying where it had been tossed those hours ago. An idea sprang into his head, and he acted before the opportunity was lost.  
  
He pawed the phone out of the pocket and brought it over to White. The knife reappeared in his hand and then rested lightly on White’s throat. “I’m going to put you on speaker, and you will answer and speak as you always do, giving no indication of your current situation. If you start deviate from this, say anything thing that will get us in worse trouble than we are with the mist monsters, I will slit your throat.”  
  
White glared at him with undisguised hate, but he nodded.


	3. Chapter 3

**Part 3**

Satisfied for the moment, Alec flipped the phone open and hit the speaker button, moving it closer to White’s face.

“White?” a woman’s voice demanded, “You need to get back to base. We have a bigger problem than the transgenics at the moment.”

Alec’s eye brows went up at that, but he kept the knife steady on White’s throat.

The Familiar swallowed and said, “Moorehead. We had a situation that forced me to take cover in the warehouse along with the transgenics and civilians. I lost my back up. Otto was killed. No one is sure what is happening yet, but they suspect the transgenics and could easily be swayed to a riot to kill them.”

“I don’t care what the rabble do, or the transgenics. The chimeras have escaped.”

Under the fever flush, White blanched. “So they are real,” he muttered.

“Of course they are!” Moorehead snapped. “The Conclave just did not see fit to tell everyone about their existence. They are very real. And that meteor strike of last night destroyed the facility they were in. Now they are running wild in Seattle in this murk. And I want to have all my operatives where I can see them. Can you get out of the warehouse unseen?”

“I don’t think that’s wise,” White said, struggling to keep his voice even as Alec pressed the knife down a little harder. “I feel that my position is ideal. We are fortified, and have actually been attacked, but repelled them. I feel that I can start a riot that would not only cover my escape, but terminate the transgenics in the building as well, along with a number of the Ordinaries.” He paused and then said uncertainly, “Could this be the Coming? A force that would wipe the transgenics and the weaker elements away?”

Moorehead make a sound very like a growl. “I don’t know. It is possible. But the chimeras are not numerous enough to do the sort of damage we expected. Locally, yes, but not globally like we were promised. Perhaps this is just the beginning.” She sighed. “Stay at your location and report if any new developments arise. My information is incomplete; the fog is preventing accurate reports from both the news and the others of the Conclave in the field. _Fe’nos tol._ ”

“ _Fe’nos tol._ ”

Alec snapped the phone shut and turned the knife from White’s throat to his eye, the tip pressing ever so lightly on the bottom lid. “Chimeras. What are they? Now.”

White pulled his lips back in a snarl and tried to spit at Alec, but the knife pressed just a little harder.

“I will take the eye,” Alec warned, voice low. “Messy, nasty, not as clean as I usually like to operate, but I’ll take it. And the other one, and then maybe your nose, until you talk.”

“Fine,” White said, a hint of laughter in his voice. “I doubt knowing will actually save you, anyway.”

What followed was one of the most surreal things Alec had ever heard, even with fact that he was a genetically enhanced super soldier whose closest friends who looked like a bloodhound and a lizard.

It turned out, the Breeding Cult had their own mythology that tangled with some more familiar mythology, and those myths were apparently more real than anyone thought. The Breeding Cult had started devising their super humans to combat against monsters, beasts known as chimeras.

Similar to the chimeras of Greek mythology, it had the body of a lion, a tail that of a snake, but instead of a goat’s head in its back, there were tentacles to reach out and drag the victim close. The Breeding Cult’s people had to be fast, strong, feel no pain, and be immune to the venom of the snake’s bite; their special ceremonial snakes had been bred to have similar qualities to the chimera’s bite – if you could survive that, you could survive the chimera.

No one beyond the higer-ups in the Council knew that there had been a small population of chimeras that had actually been developed and kept in a facility near Seattle. Until now. The Familiars should be able to deal with them with adequate warning, but anyone else was going to be destroyed.

When White finished speaking, Alec had to repress a shiver. Was it just coincidence that the shock wave from the meteor that let the monsters loose had tumbled that book about Greek mythology from his book shelf the night before? Or had it been some sort of sign? He wasn’t the superstitious type, but now he had to wonder. He pulled the knife away from White’s eye and then moved to cut the ropes binding his wrists and ankles.

Eyes narrowed, White watched every move.

Finished, Alec straightened and nodded towards White’s abandoned clothes. “Get dressed. We’re going to join everyone else and tell them what’s going on.”

“You honestly think they’ll believe it?” White sneered. “You’ll start a panic, or they’ll all get angry and attack you.”

“And you,” Alec replied. “’Cause I’m making you tell the story.”

White’s clothing, despite how Alec had split the seams to remove the, were mostly salvageable. In a few minutes, Alec pushed White to face the others at the front of the warehouse. There was some murmuring and hesitant movements.

“What did you do to him?” one voice wondered.

“Sir, are you alright?”

“Transgenic monster,” one last person growled out before Clemente lifted his voice in an order for silence.

Alec prodded White in the ribs with the knife. The man winced and snarled but looked up at the crowd.

“There is something out there, in the mist,” he started.

A frustrated Sector Police officer barked a harsh laugh. “Tell us something we don’t know!”

“They’re creatures, animals, called chimeras,” White said evenly.

The crowd fell silent for a moment, before a derisive flutter of laughter floated up.

“Wait, is that a code name, or something, like Manticore?” Sketchy wondered.

Cindy hit him. “Shut up fool, and don’t add to the problem.”

“I was just wondering.”

The police officer called out again. “The only animals I see in here are those transgenics!”

A cry of agreement went up from the crowd, and Alec saw White smile grimly.

“Let’s get rid of the monsters that we know are real!” a man cried out, and grabbed a side arm from one of the National Guardsmen. The soldier made no move to take the weapon back and flipped the safety off his machine gun instead.

“Hey now!” Max shouted and sprang forward, her hands up and out in both a placating gesture and an order to halt. “We can’t do this! We have to work together to get past whatever’s out there!”

“Yeah?” the now armed rabble raiser hefted the pistol and pointed it at her. “How do we know that this isn’t some sort of trap you mutants set?”

“One of ours got ripped apart out in the mist, or did you miss that?” Alec demanded, fear and fury rising through his gut. It wouldn’t take much to push the nervous crowd to lynch mob mode.

“Strategic loss,” said a Guardsman. “Obviously a ruse to make us feel for you.”

Joshua growled and twitched forward. “Mole was a friend,” he snarled. “We don’t use friends like that!”

“You’re animals, you can’t understand friendship!”

“If we’re animals, you’re putting us to bay, and that’s going to be dangerous.” Alec took a step away from White and let his knife hand dangle by his side, long and loose.

“For you or for us?” the rabble raiser demanded.

Max lifted her hands again. “Calm down everyone!”

It was too late. The crowd surged forward.

But before anyone could make another move, window glass and the reinforcement over it exploded inward. Two windows, on opposite ends of the room, gaped open to the mist. A bubbling roar filled the air. Everyone, the transgenics included, instinctively ran away from the threats, and huddled in the center of the large room. The soldiers, police and transgenics sprang into action. They forced the unarmed and terrified civilians into the center of a circle and faced the threat with weapons readied.

For several long moments nothing happened. The mist curled and lapped at the edges of the broken windows, but the late afternoon sun did nothing to illuminate what was beyond them. Feet shuffled on the dusty concrete, fingers danced around triggers, eyes shifted from breach to breach. No one was willing to let their guard down, but no one could stand still.

Then, with a roar that was literally deafening in the echoing confines of the warehouse, a creature sprang through the window. Before it even had cleared the shattered glass still in the frame, there was a second roar and another beast in the other window.

They were huge, easily the size of well fed and mature lions, but with longer legs, increasing their height. They had heavy black manes and golden bodies of rough fur. Slavering jaws with massive fangs opened for another roar. The furred tail mutated after the first six inches into scales, and a snake writhed in place of a tail; flat reptilian eyes roved around the room as forked tongues sampled the air. But the most terrifying things were the six tentacles that sprang from the center of each monster’s back. Nearly twenty feet long, grey and lined with suckers like a squid’s, they flailed through the air, reaching for the next victim.

The chimeras hit the floor on silent feet and considered the huddled group of people for a heartbeat. And then the screaming started, followed by panicked shots. The terrified civilians darted back and forth, trying to move away from one beast only to dodge back from the second. Bullets zinged through the air, ricocheting off concrete and steel.

The confused crowd splintered, and within in seconds, people were snatched up by tentacles. The screams rose even higher and louder. There was a sudden snapping crunch as bodies were ripped apart.

“Fuck,” Alec swore. “Max, Joshua! Get to the right, group everyone and try to corner that thing! CeCe, with me! Same thing!”

They peeled off and sprang into the fray. Alec grabbed a submachine gun off the floor, ignoring the blood that splattered the grip and barrel. Sweeping it to his hip, he snapped off two quick shots at the nearest chimera. The bullets hit along the flank and sprayed greyish blood. But the chimera just shook its mane and roared in irritation. A tentacle snapped out at him. He ducked and dodged; his knife flashed out and slashed at it.

He backed away from the chimera, shooting every few steps to keep it at bay. He heard CeCe barking orders to the police and Guardsmen. On the other end of the warehouse, the second chimera roared under a salvo of gunfire.

A hand fell on his shoulder and Alec glanced back to see CeCe and a line of determined and armed humans. The rest of the crowd was pressed together behind the defenders. Alec stepped back and joined with the line, lifting the gun to his shoulder.

“All right, give him hell!” CeCe shouted.

Assorted handguns and submachine guns barked out in a rattling thunder. The chimera staggered back but did not fall. CeCe barked another order, and they advanced several steps, still firing. A tentacle whipped out and snatched up a man from the end of line and slammed him against the wall. The man tumbled limp and broken to the floor.

Alec gritted his teeth and steadied the aim of the gun. He fired once, aiming for the chimera’s ear. He hit it. Brain matter and blood flew into the air. The chimera’s roar turned into a bubbling whistle, and it collapsed. Tentacles flapped about, and the snake writhed across the floor, mouth opening and closing rapidly.

“Nice shot!” Clemente called. He was several spots down the line from Alec.

Alec just bobbed his head once and spun towards the second chimera. “Max!” he bellowed. “Head shot! Take it out with a head shot!”

She turned at the sound of his voice, but she had refused to take a gun and was helpless. She turned to the man next to her, a sector policeman, and shouted the order at him. But it was obviously too shaken to do much; his gun jumped and twitched wildly as if he was trying to shoot the tentacles instead of the bulk of the creature.

Between the lines of soldiers, the crowd continued to panic. Mindless in terror, they staggered into the armed men, ruining their aim and distracting them.

The chimera seemed to sense that its partner had gone down, and it grew desperate. A roar rang through the air and the chimera sprang toward the line, tentacles writhing forward. A wild volley of shots filled the air with noise and lead. But the line faltered, and then broke. The mass of people turned and ran away, but the chimera bounded forward.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” Alec snarled and ran away from the crowd and towards the wall. “CeCe, Clemente, we need to flank it, corner it!”

“Got it!” CeCe called back. She slapped shoulders as she ran by. “You, you, you! With me, we’re going to the right and behind! You and you, keep a covering fire!”

“How?” one of the men demanded as someone careened into him.

“Get past those idiots!” she screamed back.

Alec and Celemente managed to clear the crowd and started peppering the chimera with bullets. It snarled and changed course and twisted towards them, the lion’s jaw gaping and the tentacles whipping past their heads. Alec shifted the gun to one hand and pulled out his knife again. It ruined his ability to aim as well, but it kept the tentacles off him.

Just before the chimera got too close, CeCe’s group opened fire on the other flank. Max had joined them, using a length of pipe to keep the shooters free of tentacles. The chimera flinched and slowed, but did not turn. The snake, coiled over its back, suddenly lashed out. It went for the least threatening target: Max.

“Shit, watch out Max!” Alec shouted.

Max twisted to swing the pipe, but it slipped under her guard. Before it could strike her, CeCe blurred towards her and pushed her to the ground. The snake missed Max, but hit CeCe.

The venomous fangs sank into her shoulder, close to the neck. She screamed, choking on the sound as the poison spread and her throat swelled. With a gasping cry, she sank to the floor. A tentacle lashed out, caught her around the waist, and threw her against the wall. Alec heard her spine crack as she hit a support strut.

“No!” Max cried, scrambling towards CeCe’s body.

“Max, stay focused!” Alec bellowed, and staggered as someone ran into him. He looked up to see White, grinning as he slipped past the crowd and out the door. He disappeared into the mist.

For a moment, Alec felt only relief. White was gone, and out in the mist. But then a terrible thought hit him. If White was willing to take an exit out into the unknown, did he know more about the chimeras than he had let on?

“Shit,” he muttered, and then found Clemente. “Work with Max, and kill this damn thing! Head shots! I’m going after White!”

“White? Why?” Clemente demanded as he took aim at the chimera and shot a tuft of fur off the top of its mane.

“He might know something, and he’s too dangerous to let loose!”

“Too dangerous?!” Clemente’s voice echoed after him as he ran out the door.

And Alec plunged into another world. The mist swallowed him within a few steps, and the warehouse disappeared from sight. He could still hear the continued battle inside, but it was muffled, as if under water.

All he could see was white and shades of grey. The mist bled into to the ground under his feet and pulsed around him, like the heartbeat of some great monster. Or the combined pulses of hundreds of smaller creatures. It brushed cold and damp across his face, neck and hands, raising goose bumps and shivers.

“What the hell is this mist?” he breathed as he slowed to a cautious walk.

“Damned useful, I’d say,” White drawled from… somewhere.

Alec spun around to find where the voice had come from, but he couldn’t pinpoint it. He had no idea where White might be, where he could launch an attack from. His mouth went dry, and his eyes widened, darting about and struggling to stare through the fog. He couldn’t see anything, couldn’t properly hear anything, and smell wasn’t exactly high on his list of strengths. And there was no way for him to know if there were more chimeras out there.

Then he took a deep breath and forced his breathing to a steady pace. If he couldn’t see, then neither could White. And he couldn’t make it easier for the Familiar by panicking.

He took another deep breath and focused on what he could see and hear, instead of what he couldn’t. “Why don’t you just come out and face me like a man, White?” Alec taunted. “Or are you too afraid?” He went utterly still, waiting for White’s response.

Though the mist, Alec heard the faint crunch of gravel underfoot, the almost silent whisper of cloth. White’s voice drifted through as well, traveling with the movement; he wasn’t standing still, he was circling, closing in.

“You’re not human, I don’t see why I should give you the privilege.”

“And you’re so much more human than me,” Alec scoffed. “You ran off and left everyone in the warehouse.” He turned in a tight circle, trying to stay with White.

White voice faded a little and the scuffed gravel noise increased. “So did you.”

“Ah, but we’ve established, I’m not human.”

“And so you shall be put down like the scum you are,” White whispered, knowing Alec could hear him.

There was the faint, metallic click of a gun being cocked, and Alec threw himself to the side and down. Even as he moved, he frantically hoped his calculation of White’s position had been right.

It hadn’t been. Or at least not entirely. The bullet hissed out of the mist and connected with his left shoulder even as he tumbled. It was a clean in and out, but that arm had been shot once that day already, and gunshots always hurt. A pained cry ripped out of his throat and he slammed into the pavement; minor hurts flared up across his palms and knees only to be forgotten as the bullet wound throbbed.

Alec gritted his teeth and forced himself to stand. He still had his own gun, and the knife. Left arm clamped against his side and useless in pain, he struggled to his feet and readjusted his grip on the gun.

A cruel chuckle floated out of the fog. “Got you.”

“Fucking bad shot, you know,” Alec said through clenched teeth. “Thought you said you were going to put me down.” Under his own panted breath, he heard White move, and zeroed in on the area.

“I never said I’d do it quickly.”

Alec didn’t even bother with a retort; he just lifted the gun and fired at where he heard White.

As the gunshot faded, a breath of movement brushed across Alec’s neck, and White whispered, “You’re going have to do better than that.” And he brought the barrel of his gun down across the back of Alec’s skull.

But that breath of warning had been all Alec needed, and he dodged to the other side. The gun caught his head, slicing the skin and making him stagger to one knee and a hand, but he didn’t go down all the way. Panting in pain and fear, he scrambled away, feeling the wind of another missed blow brush across his hair. And then the mist enveloped him again.

“You honestly think you can hide from me in the mist?” White laughed. “You may think it keeps me from seeing you, but it also keeps me out of your sight.”

“I’m not the one with the monologues!” Alec straightened and steadied his breathing before taking several quiet steps further into the mist. No reason to make himself an easy target.

For several long moments, there was no sound apart from Alec’s thudding heartbeat and his ragged breaths. Even the sounds from the battle in the warehouse seemed to have been swallowed by the mist. Then there was the telltale crunch of gravel behind him.

He spun, right arm and gun raised like a shield while his wounded left arm slashed with the knife. The blade sliced through thin air as White anticipated the move and twisted out of the way. The butt of his pistol hit Alec’s temple with a dull thud.

Pain, bright red edged with white, drove Alec to the ground. He sprawled across the pavement, breath knocked from his lungs. Darkness crept in around the edges of his vision, but he did not pass out. White loomed over him, a satisfied smirk twisting his lips. He casually wiped off the blood that had smeared across the handle of his gun and then chambered another round.

“Finally. I’m going to put you down like the dog you are, 494.” He leveled the gun at Alec’s head.

Sucking in a painful breath, Alec offered a rictus grin up at White. “Feline DNA. Not canine.” He tried to gather his muscles to move, but they refused to obey him properly.

White’s smirk changed to a snarl. “Scum.” He pulled the trigger.

Before Alec could move, a grey tentacle swooped out of the mist, grabbed White around the waist, and hauled him into the air. The bullet snapped into the pavement next to Alec’s head, lead fragments and bits of stone slicing into his face.

White screamed in pain and terror as a second tentacle appeared, latched around his legs, and pulled. Another tentacle snapped around his right arm and twisted.

Still breathless and blinking blood from the fresh wounds on his face, Alec could do nothing but watch as White suddenly ripped into three pieces. Blood and gore sprayed across the pavement, and Alec swore it painted the mist itself red for a moment. Then, with a triumphant roar, the chimera withdrew the tentacles and its grisly trophy into the mist and disappeared.

“Fire!” a deep voice bellowed. There was a roar of gun fire, and a pained growl from the chimera before a heavy thump against the ground.

Alec finally managed a lungful of air and sat up. The sound of boots on pavement and worried voices echoed through the mist. He lifted his own gun and tried to keep his left arm stable as he got to his feet. It sounded like a rescue effort, but he wasn’t sure. Maybe his rattled brain was making stuff up.

“Alec? Alec, where are you, you royal pain in my ass?” Max’s voice called out.

“Nope, not makin’ stuff up,” he muttered. “Over here!”

The scuffing of boots he had heard changed directions, and Max stepped out of the mist. Her hair was in disarray, and there was blood on her boots and spattered on her dark jeans, but otherwise she looked unharmed. She spotted him and barely managed to cover her relief under a shield of annoyance.

“What the hell were you thinking, running out like that?” she demanded.

“Uh… I wasn’t?” he hazarded. “That’s what you want to hear, right?”

She rolled her eyes. “Just shut up.”

He scrubbed some blood away from his eye, where it was welling from a cut over his eyebrow. “You kill the chimera in the warehouse?”

“No, we threw it a party,” she snapped back. “And the one out here, too. Enjoy your nap?”

“It was wonderful.”

While they had been sniping at each other, the remaining crowd joined them, pressing out of the mist.

Clemente and Joshua worked their way to the front of the crowd. The detective looked like he was edging on hysteria, but Joshua simply looked tired.

“We got a plan, Little Fella?” Joshua asked Max. He moved over to Alec’ side. “Medium Fella okay?”

Alec grunted. “I’m always alright.” But he didn’t pull away when Joshua ripped a part of his shirt and wrapped it around his wounded shoulder.

“Well, we know what these monsters are, and what they do,” Max started.

“But we have no idea how many there are, and we can’t see them through the mist,” Clemente pointed out.

Alec frowned and looked at the crowd in the mist. “We can’t stay out here. I vote we head for TC. There’s shelter, electricity, and backup there.”

Max considered the idea but Clemente didn’t look thrilled. Alec tossed his good arm in the air in frustration.

“Anyone else have a better idea?” he demanded.

“I just want to get home,” a woman said. “My kids are still at home. It’s only a few blocks from here…”

“I’m not going to that freak city. There’s supposed to be nuclear waste there!”

“You guys have guns there? That’s where I’m going!”

Before the noise level could get too high and attract more chimeras, Alec bellowed, “Quiet!” As every gaze focused on him, he continued, “All of you who want to come to TC with us, let’s go. The rest of you – good luck.”

He took off into the mist, trusting that at least Max and Joshua would follow him. There was some quiet shuffling as the rest of the crowd dispersed. And then Joshua appeared next to him, and Max stepped out of the mist on the other side. Original Cindy and Sketchy weren’t far behind. Clemente and a handful of SPD officers and a few civilians caught up.

The mist swallowed the little band; it peeled back one step at a time to reveal what was next only a moment before it was visible. It was harder to hear if anything was coming, Alec realized, with the small crowd surrounding him. And the chimeras had been hard enough to hear to begin with.

Shadows moved through the mist, and there was a low, pulsing growl from some unknown point. Alec heard a collective intake of panicked breath and the steady march of feet on pavement became erratic. A bleak thought flickered through Alec’s mind. If they didn’t make it to TC, if the chimeras got them, no one would know. Only the mist would know.

He clenched his jaw and pressed on, the rest of the group trailing after.

 _Fin._


End file.
